Jim's comment on authonomy has picked up a deliberate style/technique I try to use:
‘This story has an oddly dual quality. On the surface it has a gritty realism in the description of the scenes and the very naturalistic dialogue; and yet one feels as if one is viewing it in a dream and everything is subtly "off" - very disconcerting and sinister... As a story it makes my skin creep, '
There are two scenes in particular that are intended to create a feeling of unease, perhaps even dis-ease. One is the toddler standing at the front door while his mother is coming to pay her bill. I wanted him and his erection to make the reader feel uncomfortable, as though there is some sort of evil presence that Peter is trying shield Simon from. No one has mentioned it at all, so it probably didn't work, even though it felt as though it did when writing the scene.
Another is the two boys playing hide and seek. Tracy picked this up and wondered what the hell was going on there. There seemed to be no point in the scene. Others have said they are just figment of Simon's imagination and agree with Peter that it must have been the effect of the coffee. No one has yet connected it to the death of Peter's brothers in the war. For me they are ghosts, waiting for Peter to play with them. Perhaps that is too much!
I used this way of the reader 'viewing it in a dream' and 'everything is subtly off' a lot in Herod Dreams.
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